I've searched, but I can't find any mention of Metafive on this forum. This is a Japanese supergroup including frequent Steve collaborator Yukihiro Takahashi.

Takahashi assembled a supergroup to back him on a Japan tour in, I think, 2014 as "Yukihiro Takahashi + METAFIVE". However, they the continued the band as just METAFIVE, meaning that despite the name it has six members.

Members are:

Yukihiro Takahashi from Sadistic Mika Band, YMO, The Beatniks, Pupa, Pulse (with Steve) and more. Cornelius from Flipper's Guitar, work with Ryuichi Sakamoto, Yoko Ono/Plastic Ono band and more.Towa Tei from Dee-lite, work with Sakamoto, and more. Yoshinori Sunahara from Denki Groove, and moreLeo Imai, solo artist and London University/Oxford University graduate Tomohiko Gondo from pupa, anonymass, and more

Everyone writes, it's mainly Imai and Takahashi singing. They've released an album, a mini-album, and a live album.

I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned them here. Either that or my google-fu has failed me. If anyone would like to see what they are doing, then I think one of their songs from their recent (October last year) mini-album METAHALF called "Musical Chairs" works as an introduction. Definitely some YMO style keyboards here. If I had to describe it, perhaps a more funky Stay Close updated for 2016. IMHO, It's a good introduction to their other music, of which there's a fair bit now.

I'm really happy that Takahashi is, after all these decades, still getting involved in new things and producing lots of product. I think that his two post-Sketch Show electronic albums Page by Page and Blue Moon Blue are among his best solo works too. Life Anew is a bit normal for me.

I don't know how to post youtube videos here properly. So, here goes nothing as far as posting their video for Musical Chairs.

Thanks for posting this. Had never heard of the group and, of course, had missed Steve's connection.Heard a few things and all sound very good (listening to a live version of Maisie's Avenue right now).

P.S. I tried to translate that page in english and then italian but both version have left me wondering what the Jersey they are talking about.

Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans - JL 1940-1980

The more I listen to Metafive the more I like their music. I really like their visuals and style too. The videos. Everything.

I was thinking of maybe translating that page as an exercise. I've recently decided that my Japanese skills are rusty and I'm working to getting them back to where they were when I lived in Japan. However, almost nobody in the West appears to have heard of Metafive, so I didn't know whether anyone would read it if I translated it.

Metafive's most recent release is a five track EP. It's 4 quid on Amazon as a download, which is a refreshingly reasonable price. Compared to some other Japanese CDs I've bought.

Metafive has reintroduced me to Towa Tei, and I'm liking his recent work. I just wish that I could buy it. Here's a 'Towa Tei as Metafive' track from his most recent CD. There isn't much Japan (the band) connection, but the Takahashi-bot makes an appearance and I think that's Takahashi singing part of the backing vocals. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5lgUz4t9fJw Though, Takahashi (in both real and robot form) makes a bigger appearance in the song 'Love Pandemic' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=elc8bll7CHk and Hosono makes an appearance as well, though he only sings one word (repeated) in the song.

I hadn't heard of Leo Imai before Metafive, but he has a solo career. The most recent album of his on Spotify is 'Made For Nothing' and the second half, in particular, is IMHO very good and worth a listen.

'Maise's Avenue' is my favourite song on the first album, though I like several on the EP more than it.

METAFIVE is a special band formed by Yukihiro Takahashi, Keigo Oyamada, Yoshinori Sunahara, Towa Tei, Tomohiko Gondo, and Leo Imai.

Their first album 'META' was released in January, they've participated in a number of festivals, in August a live video 'METALIVE' was released, they've been very active. Now they've completed their new released 'METAHALF'. This time it's a five song mini album, but each song is full of power and is high quality. All of the members demonstrate how highly motivated they are with their work on the album. On a pause from the 'One Man Tour' (his first) that started in November, Messers Takahashi, Sunahara, and Gondo talked to us about their new release.

Notes: I don't know whose one man tour it was. There is no subject in the sentence.

Before talking about METAHALF, let's talk a bit about World Happiness. It was a surprise that Yukihiro sang 'Kimi ni Mune Kyun' on stage with METAFIVE, and it I've heard that it was Sunahara's idea to do this. as a YMO fan I wish to thank him for promoting that idea. But, why that song?

Sunahara: The WORLD HAPPINESS concert at Yumenoshima was the last one, and we though that we must do something that would be a bit of a recap. 'Mune Kyun' isn't a song that has a particular emotional attachment. But it's a song that YMO themselves hadn't been doing. So, there was a suggestion that 'Even if YMO had trouble doing that song, META should be able to just do it.'.

Notes: Not sure that YMO had trouble with this song. The word I translated as having trouble has more meanings.

高橋幸宏 あれはテレビで口パクでしかやってないんで。あ、フルバンドで生でやったっけ？

Takahashi: We'd only lip-synched that on television. So we thought let's do it fully live with a full band.

Takahashi: So, we decided 'let's just do it at WAHAPI [short for WORLD HAPPINESS]'. After that, Steve (Jansen) came to Japan. About three days before WORLD HAPPINESS while eating, we asked him 'Aren't you coming to WORLD HAPPINESS?' to which he replied 'No-one asked me to come.' (laughs). To which it was said 'To be honest, there's a concert in Kyoto the next day but it's impossible because I'd have to go there ahead of time.' But we said 'It'll be OK, just come.' To which he replied 'OK, I'll go to Kyoto on the day.'

Notes: There isn't a single grammatical subject in this entire paragraph apart from Steve coming to Japan. As an English speaker, this is too much for me. I'm not 100% sure I've attributed statements to the person who said them.

Sunahara: Yukihiro had said on Facebook 'I think Steve will appear at WORLD HAPPINESS'. When I saw that I thought 'WHAT?', and started programming up Yukihiro and Steve's song 'STAY CLOSE'. (Laughs). Just after I started that, I was told by staff that an email had arrived saying that Steve would be drumming on 'Mune Kyun'. So, I said 'This won't be needed' and stopped theprogramming.

– I wanted to hear STAY CLOSE played live, but how was in having Steve playing on 'Mune Kyun'?

Takahashi: The original plan was to record two songs as bonus tracks for the METALIVDE Blu-ray. 'Let's make something with everyone who's available. Originally it was just me and Gon-chan (Gondo) who had started two songs. Oyamada created one song before going on tour in America as Cornelius, which made three songs. After that TEI made a song, giving us four songs. Finally, Marin (Sunahara) wrote a song.

──あれよあれよという間に5曲？

–- And in the blinking of an eye, you had five songs?

ゴンドウ わりとそういう感じでしたね。

Gondo: Yep, that's what it felt like.

砂原 たぶん、「META」を作ったときの余力が残っていたんだと思います。

Sunahara: I think that perhaps it was leftover energy from making 'META'.

高橋 もし、次の作品をリリースすることがあったら、きっと違うコンセプトを考えて作るだろうね。

Takahashi: If we are going to release anything else, then it'll likely be a different concerpt.

砂原 そうなると時間がかかると思いますね。今回は「META」っていう前提があったから作りやすかったっていうのもある。

Sunahara: It that happens, it'll take time I think. This time, because we had the precedent of META, it was a pretty easy process.

Takahashi: Because he writes the lyrics and sings the demos, he gets in there before us. In the studio he works on subtle aspects of the melody, song editing, and fine tuning of the lyrics. He also tells us 'This is where I want Yukihiro to sing'.

Annoying Twit wrote:Notes: There isn't a single grammatical subject in this entire paragraph apart from Steve coming to Japan. As an English speaker, this is too much for me. I'm not 100% sure I've attributed statements to the person who said them.

That explains why the automatic translations for that sentence were so unclear.

Thank you very much.

Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans - JL 1940-1980